AFL Finals Fantasy Pick ‘Em

Once the AFL season is over, a lot of your Fantasy games will finish up. But what to do over finals. Sure, there is Match Day, and other Daily Fantasy Sports platforms, but what about a game that engages you over the entire AFL Finals series. Archie from Over The Line Sports has spent the last 18 months developing a new game that combines the fun of of AFL Fantasy, with the intricacies of your normal Footy Tipping competition. OTLS is proud to launch “AFL Finals Fantasy Pick ‘Em”.

The basic idea is this. Each round of finals, you can pick whoever you like to make up your team. However, once you have picked a player once, YOU CAN NEVER PICK THEM AGAIN! So this means that if you select 5 players from West Coast thinking that they will get knocked straight out, and they actually make it through, you have significantly limited your player pool for the next round. Alternatively, if you select no West Coast players, and they get knocked out, you have wasted a few of your picks on players that have actually made it through.

Scoring is based on standard AFL Fantasy Scoring. You are required to select 3 Backs, 4 Mids, 1 Ruck and 3 Forwards to play on your ground, as well as 1 emergency per line. You select a captain and vice each week (captains score gets doubled, if captain doesn’t play, VC score is doubled).

We ran this competition internally last year, and let’s just say that the run the Western Bulldogs went on, constantly beating more fancied opponents, caused some serious issues for us. Having said that, it was great fun to play, so this year we are going to open it up to anyone to play.

Please note a couple of things though. None of us have the coding skills to do this as a website, so Archie is going to keeping track of it manually on a spreadsheet. This means that you will have to submit your teams to him before lockout each week via twitter. Hit him up @OTLSArchie and let him know that you want to play. He will follow you back and you can DM him your team each week.

We hope you have as much fun playing as we did last year. Please see below for full competition rules and details, and let Archie know if you have any questions.

Mission Statement

To provide a fun, simple and engaging Fantasy AFL game that bridges the gap between Daily Fantasy Sports and the season long commitment of Salary Cap/Draft League games

Introduction

AFL Finals Pick’em runs over the 4 weeks of AFL finals, and combines two of the most engaging aspects of Footy – Tipping and Fantasy.

The basic rules of the game are quite simple. Each week you select a team of players from teams that are playing in that round of AFL Finals. You can select any player you like, however once you select a player during AFL Finals Pick’em, you cannot select that player again for the duration of the AFL Finals series. This puts the emphasis on not only selecting good AFL Fantasy scorers, but also rewards coaches who correctly determine which teams will advance further in AFL Finals, and which teams will be eliminated.

If you believe a team will not make it through to the next round of AFL Finals, then the players from that team become a priority selection, as they will not be eligible for selection in once their AFL team is eliminated from AFL finals.

Rules

Team Structure

You must pick 3 backs, 4 mids, 1 ruck and 3 forwards on your field each week.

You must also pick 1 emergency player from each line (back, mid, ruck, forward).

You must pick a captain and a vice captain each week.

Player eligibility

Eligible players – any player who is on the list of an AFL team that is competing in the current round of AFL Finals.

Ineligible players – any player on an AFL list that is not competing in the current round of AFL finals and any player who you have selected in a previous round of AFL Finals Pick’em that has registered an eligible score for your team.

Team Selection

Each week you must select 11 players from your pool of eligible players to play on field. Your 4 emergency players must also be selected from your pool of eligible players.

Scoring

Scoring is based on standard AFL Fantasy scoring structure.

Kick = 3 points

Handball = 2 points

Mark = 3 points

Tackle = 4 points

Goal = 6 points

Behind = 1 point

Free Kick for = 1 point

Free Kick against = -3 points

Eligible Score

To register as an eligible score, a player must take the field for their AFL team during the current round of AFL finals. If you select a player that does not take the field, the score of the player that you select as an emergency on that line will count towards your weekly score. You are only able to have 1 emergency player per line, therefore, if 2 or more players on a single line do not take the field for their AFL team, your emergency players score will only count once. You will receive 0 points for additional non-playing players.

Captain/Vice-Captain Scoring

You must select a captain and vice-captain score each week. Once your captain registers an eligible score, this score will be doubled for the current week.

If your captain does not register an eligible score (ie your captain selection does not play), your vice-captain’s score will be doubled. If your captain or vice-captain do not register an eligible score, their score will be replaced by the emergency players score for that line (however the emergency players score will NOT be doubled). See Emergency Player Scoring section for full details.

If both your captain and vice-captain do not register an eligible score, then no players’ score will be doubled.

Emergency Player Scoring

If a player that you have selected on your field does not play during the current round of AFL Finals, their score will be replaced by the selected Emergency player on that line. You are only able to replace 1 player per line, per round of AFL Finals.

Emergency Player Eligibility

If a player you have selected on your field does not play during the current round of AFL finals, they will be added back into the pool of eligible players at the conclusion of the round. The Emergency Player who replaces that player on the field (therefor registering an eligible score) will be moved to your pool of ineligible players at the conclusion of the round.

Any player who you select as an Emergency, but does not register an eligible score for your team (ie is not required to replace a player on the field for that line), will be added back into the pool of eligible players and will be available for selection the following week (if their AFL team is playing).

Lockout

Teams will be locked out and you will be unable to make further changes at the commencement of the first game of each round of AFL Finals.

Overall Winner

The team that accumulates the highest score across the AFL Finals series will be deemed as the winner.

Tie-breakers – in the event of a tie, the team with the highest captain score over the 4 rounds of the AFL finals series will be deemed the winner. In the event that two (or more) teams register the same highest captain score, the team that has been registered first will be deemed the winner.